The Carbon Clock Is Ticking: Children Will Live the Future That Burning Fossil Fuels Is Setting on Fire
Young people march with Greta Thunberg to call for a system change to save the planet at the Global Climate Strike march in New York City on September 20, 2019. (Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images).
Why Investment in Big Oil’s Carbon Capture Is a Dangerous Idea
THE INTERIM REPORT: April 2022
Dr. Denny Taylor
Time is running out for the world’s children and young people, and their future depends on the actions we take to end our dependency on fossil fuels and rapidly transition to renewable energy. It can be done.
The Carbon Clock is Ticking: Children Will Live the Future that Burning Fossil Fuels is Setting on Fire offers a rapidly closing window of opportunity to change the future now. It is important that we respond to the climate crisis by prioritizing the support of children and young people who will be most affected by the rising temperatures and extreme weather events that will make life difficult for them living on a much hotter and less hospitable planet.
The science is unequivocal. Fossil fuels are causing global warming and we must respond quickly if children and young people are going to survive and live long, healthy lives.
Given the scientific evidence that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels continue to rise, there is most likely zero chance that temperatures will be limited to a 1.5oC rise. Many scientists are convinced by the data that it is highly likely the temperature will surpass 2.0oC by 2030, and most scientific reports warn of a rise of 3.5oC - 5.0oC by 2100, with some reports warning that a global temperature increase greater than 5.0°C should not be ruled out.
It is important that the public understands even a temperature rise of 2.5oC will be life threatening, a temperature rise of 3.5oC will be a death knell for humanity, and based on our current trajectory it is highly likely we will surpass 3.5oC by 2050.
The IPCC WGII Sixth Assessment Report is definitive that climate hazards are a growing driver of involuntary migration and displacement (high confidence) and are a contributing factor to violent conflict (high confidence). Estimates of future displacement attributed to the use of fossil fuels and global warming vary with multiple studies including the IPCC AR6 forecasting 1 billion to 1.2 billion people displaced by 2050.
It is highly likely that by 2050 the vast scale of involuntary migration and global displacement of people caused by fossil fuel ecosystem destruction will result in irreparable damage to the infrastructure of many human societies and bring about the collapse of geopolitical relationships and socioeconomic systems worldwide. The risks are extreme, but ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell continue to put profits before people. Indeed, CO2 emissions are near pre-pandemic levels and the top 25 oil and gas companies made $237 billion in profits in 2021.
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The Carbon Clock is Ticking: Children Will Live the Future that Burning Fossil Fuels is Setting on Fire provides a broad sweep of the scientific evidence and factual documentation that unravels the fossil fuel industry’s lies denying climate change and promoting carbon capture. The report counters the subterfuge and deception of the powerful elites, lobbyists, and PACs, who are actively misleading the public into believing that we can continue to burn fossil fuels without emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Big Oil, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and API are already lying to us about carbon capture (CCS/CCUS) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR), which scientific analysis demonstrates is a Big Oil boondoggle that will increase CO2 generation and advance ecological destruction. Carbon capture will not save the future for children and young people, and it will not save many of us. In fact, we are all victims of the fossil fuel industry’s second big lie. CCS/CCUS won’t work in time or without crippling economic costs. Billions of dollars are being spent on propaganda to deceive the public and hoodwink us into believing we can continue to use fossil fuels and stop the temperature rising. We can’t.
ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell are holding humanity’s feet to the fire by lying about CCS/CCUS. A data driven analysis confirms that it is financially viable to make the transition to clean energy, and that it is much more feasible than giving trillions in tax dollars to the fossil fuel industry. Do not let ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell fool you with their big lies and unrealistic pie in the sky expectations for carbon capture, utilization, and storage.
Knowing the deadly consequences to children and young people of the fossil fuel industry’s moral bankruptcy, it is important the public finds ways to inform the decision-making process to ensure policymakers remove all subsidies for fossil fuels and develop an electrification plan to reach net zero by 2030 to prevent further avoidable global warming. We must alter course and we must do it now.
A Fossil Fuel Divestment Plan to save the planet for children and young people is presented in Part Two of The Carbon Clock is Ticking in which you will have an opportunity to consider the scientific evidence and the analysis of lived experience that has gone into the development of the plan. If we act fast there is still time.